ALL CAPS
IT SEEMS FITTING THAT A PAGE ABOUT ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, SHOULD BE IN ALL CAPTIAL LETTERS. IT SHOULD QUICKLY REVEAL THAT USING "ALL CAPS" IS A BIT OF AN EYESORE, AND IS NOT (AS CLAIMED BY MANY ALL-CAPS-USERS) EASIER TO READ, EVEN WITH THE INCREASED SIZE OF THE LETTERS. HOWEVER, FOR THE SAKE OF SANITY, ONLY THE FIRST FOUR SENTENCES WILL BE IN "ALL CAPS." AFTER THAT, THIS ARTICLE WILL SWITCH TO "NORMAL CASING" TO MAKE IT EASIER TO READ AND UNDERSTAND. "All Caps" within text communications, is used to highlight words to give them more emphasis. If a person was actually speaking aloud, the way they would normally do it is by increasing the force, volume, and/or inflection, of the word. To many people, it's essentially yelling. As an example, please read the following phrases to yourself outloud as they appear below: *You went to school today. *You went to SCHOOL today. *YOU went to school today. *You went to school TODAY. and finally: *YOU WENT TO SCHOOL TODAY. If you've performed this example correctly, you'll notice that each phrase is verbalised differently, with the emphasized (captialized) word being given greater force, and someone listening, should be able to determine that emphasis. By the time you reach the last line, although it is the same dialogue as the top line, your verbalization would have seemed loud, and/or aggressive, and/or forecful, even without using an exclamation point at the end. For many readers, these lines are vocalized in their head in a similar fashion, which suggests that the last line is basically forceful, aggressive, and when found amongst a dialogue, could be considered very rude, and abrasive. In the game we play, the chat system is essentially an attempt to use typewritten text to emulate verbal conversations. It's recognized that things such as calling for assistance, or asking for players to join you, or even to get someone's attention, might deserve some emphasis within a verbal conversation, but due to the amount of people involved in the chat who also wish to be "heard" at the same time, the general concensus is that it is fair to ask that full-line emphasis not be used for those instances. That is not to suggest that single-word emphasis is permissible in every sentence you write, but that if there's a word that should be emphasized in-order to make the inflection of your sentence illustrate the true meaning, it is occassionally permissible to do that. For example: * you MUST buy the beta key if you want one, there is no other way to get it. :The emphasis wasn't required here as a standalone sentence, but might be useful when a new player continues to suggest they could obtain the key another way. Then the emphasis makes the sentence quite clear and unmistakable. * BOUNCER please answer my question. :This usage of emphasis is not acceptable. Mainly, it's bad because again, there are others who are typically also speaking to Bouncer and/or are trying to get his attention (in communications you may not see) or he may be away from the keyboard entirely. If he is in a position to answer your question at that point, he'll see it even without the emphasis. If the chat is already full of other's playing the "Hey-my-capslock-is-broken" game, or otherwise being disruptive, fully capitalized words should REALLY be avoided entirely. You run the risk of being blocked from chat immediately without anything further being said if a mod has just announced that the activites need to stop. It's a mod's duties to get players to calm down, follow the rules, and smooth out disruptions. It sometimes isn't possible when others are jumping in, to do it without creating new temporary rules on-the-fly. Moderators don't like to do that sort of thing, but sometimes it's simply required. An example of this is: *"The next person to mention Justin Beiber in any context is going to get blocked from chat." :A comment regarding Justin Beiber turned into free-for-all attack on his personage, with a lot of derrogatory comments regarding his possible sexual persuasion. That type of chat is not allowed. It was literally flooding the chat because apparently a lot of people feel strongly homophobic or somehow offended by the concept of a person having an "interest" in someone of the same gender, and they wanted everyone to know that they hated that kind of thing in general. If the mod in that circumstance had said "no more gay talk or you'll be blocked from chat" the chat would have turned into euphemisms regarding sexual preferences, and when the chat is flying fast, it's hard to tell the difference between someone making an elaborate euphemism involving several lines of text, and/or suddenly trying to defend Justin's name to a bunch of people who obviously strongly feel a different way about it but weren't permitted to give their perspective anymore. The only way to absolutely stop it was to stop the entire conversation dead in it's tracks, and start blocking people from chat if they persisted. The chat blocks are almost always temporary, usually about 24 hours. Which should be more than enough time to get the point across: if you're respectful and at least somewhat tolerant and considerate of other people in chat, you can continue to participate. Category:Playing Assistance